Doubts get a bad rap, they tend to be seen as negative. Well, yes, they certainly have a negative side, but then so does everything. So long as we soley focus on the negative then we tend to make ourselves more negative.
I believe everything has a positive and a negative aspect. Let’s take doubt as an example.
I had an interesting conversation not long ago with an official soldier, I’d like to share it here:
- If you´re flying an airplane and you recieve the command to drop a bomb on a village where you know people with children live, would you do it?
- Yes. If it´s an order, yes.
- Would You feel responsible for the death of those people?
- No, I would just executing an order.
- So You wouldnt feel responsible as a killer?
- No! Of course not! Not at all. Im a soldier, that my job.
- Okay, so, what if You´re the one who´s giving the order, would you feel like a killer if you gave the order to drop that bomb?
- Well, I wouldn’t technically be a killer. So, Im not sure…
- You wouldnt get in touch with the results at all. You wouldnt even see any of the destruction or death caused by the bomb, you wouldnt even ever have seen that particular bomb maybe.
- Right.
-Okay, so… What if you were the father of a child that was killed by that bomb? Who would you think is responsible? Who would you blame? The soldier that executed the killing? The commander who gave the command? The country the commander comes from? The nation it belongs to?
- …
There was no answer to that. Of course it is not about who to blame, since it wouldnt be of much use. (we do it anyway though)
But there is something interesting about this conversation, because it made clear to me one of the key issues of our society:
People within the frames of a system are not responsible for their own acts - if those serve the given system. In that bombing example nobody would turn out responsible, because the system allows to step over basic human values in order to remain in power. But there is a problem: human consciousness in normal circumstances wouldn’t allow to do it because life is a basic human value - embedded in our souls. I need to take out the responsibility from the equation, it´ll also eliminate the guilt factor, and with that I deactivate consciousness. That way I simply replace the value “life” with the value “system”.
It will seem that i have stopped being responsible for “life” - generally. For my own life, and for that of others as well.
There is also something else: What Im not responsible for - I have no power over. This is a very important part of the power-play going on.
So yes, responsibility is power. It´s freedom to decide. Its freedom to think, to evaluate and to act accordingly. It´s not only a charge, its Power. People who are giving up on their responsibilities, are also giving up their own freedom. They are selling their free will for the illusion of remaining in the comfort zone of being children.
According to my values, in the example above everyone would have to assume their own responsibility:
To me the one who shoots, is a killer. I don´t accept the excuse of “only executing orders” because I believe in human values, and free will, I believe we are no robots, I believe we always have a choice. The one who gives the order; to me - according to human values - is unworthy of the power he´s given.
In order to reestablish human values we need to clear up the and trigger the question of responsibility for our own actions. Each of us responds for their own actions. Very simple put: It´s about time we grew up.
There is an interesting video to this, about the so called “Milgram Experiment” Derren Brown made a remake of it in one of his shows, I think it is interesting to see.
Truth is in everything; yet not everything is true.
Throughout the course of our life there are plenty of people all clambering over each other trying to tell us what the truth is. I’m sure they’d be only too happy to have somebody subscribe to their truth.
What’s their motivation? Well, that varies, and it can range from the selfless to the selfish.There are people with good intentions and others who seek only their own prosperity.
How can we tell the difference between somebody who is being honest or dishonest? How can we tell if somebody is using selective truth in order to forward a hidden agenda?
Just like in mathematics it is good to start simple. The first, and most important question is of course:
What is truth? How can we say if something is true or not before we are certain what truth actually is?
To start with write down some things you believe are completely, undoubtedly true. You can even try doubting them as a test. Question the belief from all sorts of obscure angles and if you still believe strongly in them (without having an adverse reaction) then things are looking good.
Now, unless it took some time for you to resolve your doubts and realise your personal truths, this next part may be the most time-consuming. The idea is to take an in-depth look at those truths and realise patterns within them.
I started with the sky is blue.
I asked myself, ‘what is blue?’. I concluded that blue is a colour (within a certain range of the spectrum) which is generally associated with the label ‘blue’.
I asked myself, ‘does everybody see it that way?’. The answer is no. There are people who are colour-blind and others who may see it differently and yet still associate it with ‘blue’. Also, there are people with other languages who will attribute a different label to define both the sky and the colour. To them the sky would not be blue, they would use different words to describe seeing the same thing. If I were to go to another country and look at the sky at a similar time of day I would expect to generally see the same thing.
Just from this simple truth I have already struck some gold. What may be undeniably true to one person may not be true to another despite them witnessing the same scene. If both people understood the same language then they may agree to this truth. Do you see where this is going?
This opens up a number of avenues:
So where do we go from here? The idea is to realise what truth is so that we may build around it. Now, truth is in everything, but what we want to do is to separate the relative truths (the wrapper used by whomever had it last) from the absolute truth. To do this we need an open mind, patience, and some good grounding.
Let’s take my example, the sky is blue. This remains true so long as I ask people with similar vision capabilities who understand the same language as me. This is a wrapper and needs to be removed. To remove the wrapper we need to look deeper and find the pattern which holds true despite who is perceiving it.
There is a large space up above our heads. Whilst the sun is lighting that space (which we refer to as the sky) sufficiently, it appears as a colour we associate with blue.
For now this is considered to be my truth. It is the closest I have gotten to the absolute truth based upon my current level of understanding. I could also go into why it appears blue. There are always a number of avenues available from an exploration and it is important to prioritize which you will take. For the moment the reason why is not important to me, if you are curious you can tap ‘Why is the sky blue?’ into a search engine.
I consider this an acceptable truth for now. I peeled away the assumptions and what I was left with still stands okay. Now, I’m not going to start using that truth in conversation, I’ll still stick with the sky is blue so long as I am communicating with somebody in English. The point was to zoom in to my perceived truth and see if any flaws came to light. I’m quite happy with that for now so I zoom back out again.
Now, let’s consider another personal truth: Water is wet. Okay, well I know what water is and it fits as a label in the same way as ’sky’ and ‘blue’ did; wet, however, is something I can experience personally. If I touch some water then I can sense the differences. I consider my finger to now be wet.
Why is my finger wet? Because wet is the state my finger became when I touched the water. Some of the water is now on my finger and to describe that we merge the two entities together. Now, as ‘my finger is water’ would not make sense, and ‘my finger is with water’ comes across a little daft to us, we have ‘my finger is wet’.
Aside from the aforementioned avenues in the previous example, we now have the ability to realise through interaction. I know touching water is safe and so I can experiment with it. I can feel it, feel how I respond to it, how things feel whilst wet, and generally get a better idea of the nature of water by experiencing it in different ways.
It is through experiencing things first-hand that we can gain a better understanding. Depending on just how much we want to know we can stop here or try more experiments. There are plenty of resources available for not only working with water but also with other combinations of elements. Just as before the infinite possibilities open up and it is important to choose which direction to take.
This is the first step towards realising the truth. It’s a small step but also a very important one. My next post will be about a bigger and remarkably important step: The discovery of self - Who am I?
Realising the truth within you is an important step towards realising the greater truths. It also carries a number of benefits including improved confidence and esteem (which in turn lead to numerous other benefits), better choices (more appropriate choices lead to less turbulence in your life), alignment (when your mind, heart, and spirit are all going in the same direction you can achieve greater results), and even better health.
For now I will leave you to consider some of your own personal truths. If you can look at those honestly and form some realisations then you will be in good stead for the next step. If you have any questions you are welcome to ask them and I will endeavor to clarify whatever comes up.
Without understanding we are left grasping at straws and it can seem like things hinge upon chance.
To begin with we are told that a is a and b is b. We are told what a and b means, where to use them, and where not to use them. When we know no better this forms a platform (which I will refer to as a level 0 foundation) ‘above our head’ which we can utilise to help us through daily challenges.
Chances are that these initial foundations may evoke a strong reaction - either like or dislike. Whilst young and naive, when something is suggested that we don’t like, and when we know no better, what other options do we have? We tend to search externally for answers in order to improve this platform and make it more sturdy and dependable.
Once we have established a platform that we like we can work our way up onto it (as opposed to being beneath it) and can stand upon it without fear of it crumbling. Congratulations, this is where we stand on top of the hill and pat our self on the back. Take time to admire the scenery and enjoy the feeling.
Now where? Onwards and upwards! Things come to attention, flaws in the platform, elements which could be improved upon. Take this out, put this in, move this over here, turn that around, put this next to that - this is the first big step into the world of creation. No longer are others telling me that this should be like this and that should be like that, now I can have things how I want them and I feel empowered.
As I reorganize things to my own liking I start to get a glimpse of what happens when a interacts with b. A simple example would be colour co-ordination. Some colours go well with certain other colours, whereas another colour may cause an ugly contrast or look a bit sickly.
In this example I will refer to the colours as elements. As we are taught in science, elements react differently to each other depending on how much quantity there is of each element and how close they are to each other. There are a number of other factors too, but let’s keep it simple for now.
By taking the time to observe how elements interact with each other we begin to form understanding. Through trial and error we can change things around a little and perhaps see a different outcome.
When I was young my dad told me to keep away from the oven as it was hot and I could burn myself. The idea of burning myself was enough to put me off and I kept a good distance from that area. To me the oven was an element and I associated it with burning. I did not like the idea of being burnt so that became a negative to me and I kept away from it.
Fast forward a dozen years and I am moving into a place of my own. I did not cook at all before I left so now I had the choice of eating out or cooking for myself. The negative association I had from when I was younger had outlived its usefulness. It was good when I was younger as I didn’t know any better. It served its purpose in that it protected me from harm. Now I am old enough to work with the oven so I need to learn how to use it.
Okay, it’s simple enough, I turn dials to a given number. Each number represents a heat level and the higher the number the hotter it is. I want to cook as quickly as possible so I turn the heat right up. I go by the cooking time on the box and the temperature on there, and I adjust them to reflect my choice in temperature.
Oh. Well, the end result was edible, but not nice. Perhaps I should eat out after all? Why did it go wrong?
Round two! I’ll put it in the oven for the time it says on the box and at the temperature it says on the box. They must know better than I do so this will work out much better. Delicious pizza coming up!
Oh. Well, that’s not how I like it either. Now what? Who do I turn to now? Where are the answers?
You may be happy to know that I ended up experimenting until I found the time and temperature which worked best for me. At the time I was so dependent upon other people’s opinions that my own held little or no value.
Why was this? It’s because my platform was based upon things which I had gathered from external sources such as parents, teachers, peers, etc. Our platform, our foundations factor into who we are and what we do every day.
Sooner or later a level 0 foundation is more detrimental than it is useful. The more we need to build, the better a foundation we need to support it - otherwise, sooner or later, the foundations will give way and everything built will come crashing down. The more we (stubbornly) build upon a platform the worse the aftermath will be if the foundations are not able to support the construct. What was good for me as a child may not be appropriate for me as an adult.
By taking the time to try different temperature settings and times I finally discovered how to cook pizza in a way which resulted in a pizza that I love to eat. The oven had gone from having one fixed element, ‘heat’ (burning), to have the element ‘heat’ as a variable, which in turn has ‘time’ as an influential factor. By altering either heat and/or time the outcome is subsequently altered. The pizza could end up too cold, not cooked sufficiently all the way through, too crisp, burnt, etc.
And so, in time, I went from trying to rush things to taking my time. I had learnt from cooking pizza the benefits of cooking slowly and at a moderate temperature, as well as the personal touch from trial and error. Nowadays, instead of following things to the letter and getting frustrated, I allow things to happen within the defined parameters but then work with the results to bring them to my personal preference.
The more we understand things the better we are with them. When one person misunderstands another and does not take the time to better understand what is really going on it causes rifts.
The less we understand for our self, the more dependent we are on other people. Too much dependency is a burden and can lead to long-term issues and poor development. By investing time and energy into understanding things better we take a step closer, we have more control over our life, we are better able to relate to others, and chance is less of an issue.
With all of that in mind, I think there’s only one way I could possibly conclude this; one message which sums it all up and yet leaves a yearning for more…
Idea – Thought –Belief – Faith can be considered as steps, one leading to the other. But that’s not necessarily true. An idea basically is information. Ideas form thoughts in our heads, which may mean that the more ideas we have, the more aspects our thinking will have as well. When I think something it implies that I don’t know it. It implies that there is place for questions, for more ideas, more thoughts, other aspects. So there is more space for flexibility in thoughts, more room to play, less risk to fail. Thoughts don’t tend to fail.
I would argue that alongside death and taxes, the other inevitability is challenge. No matter who we are or where we are or what we do - we will meet challenges.
It may be easy to look at the posts on this site and think to yourself, ‘Just what does this have to do with me?’
There are a number of subjects discussed at different depths and it may not seem to fit together in some tangible way. So if it doesn’t make sense - what’s the point?
The subconscious is a very powerful drive that is constantly working in us. It´s a rather complex topic I plan to write about for a long time, but always find an excuse why not to, because it’s a pretty dark matter that is not completely explored by me yet, but I think it is time to start now. There are some discoveries I’ve made about the subconscious I’d like to share here.
Onionizing about the self
What I’m about to write here, is a bit complex, I hope to be able to make it understandable. There are some important aspects of the self we shall gain awareness of. In my introduction about images I talked about our ways to model things in life by making images of them in our mind. The self image though is a little bit more complex issue. It has various layers that are worth a closer look. Continue reading ‘Images 2 - I am… What?’
To answer that question I need a clear separation between you and me, moreover a separation between myself and the rest of the world, so I will look to find a definition of myself. Am I my Ego? Ego defines itself like this: “I am what i have. I am what I own. ” I can gather things from the outside and make it mine, part of me. That way i can convert external things into the extension of myself.
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